Harry Potter: Surviving the End
by Msafari
Summary: With the war finally over, Harry should be able to settle in to his life, free of violence. Instead, he will face a new set of enemies. From issues of the heart, to Voldemort's final revenge, and the rise of the new Ministry, Harry will be thrown back into war and revolution, before even having a chance to enjoy his new life.
1. After the War

Harry Potter woke up in his old school dormitories with a searing pain in his chest. He decided he was just sore from the battle yesterday and went downstairs to the common room. Harry sat down in front of the fire place. He started into the flames as he considered how he could possibly explain all that he had gone through. Could anyone understand what he had done? He left his friends behind, but he did it to keep from hurting them. He had gone through so much and couldn't imagine a life any different. And Ginny! What would she think? Would she be able to understand and love him once again?

Just then, he heard a door open upstairs and light footsteps on the stairs. That beautiful red hair Harry had missed so much appeared. His eyes moved down and he looked into those wide bright eyes and knew as long as she was there, everything would be all right.

"Harry?" Her soft voice brought him out of his thoughts and back into reality.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked stiffly.

"Ginny" He whispered to himself.

Ginny had made it down the stairs and went to sit on the couch across from Harry. She hugged her legs to her chest and stared at him intensely. After a few minutes of awkward silence for Harry, he cleared his throat. She still just stared at him.

"What are you looking at?" he said suddenly.

She kept staring and simply said, "What, am I not allowed to look at you?"

"No, I like you looking at me, but don't you want to talk? We haven't really seen each other in a long time and I'm sure you have some questions."

"Not now Harry, let's just enjoy being together and we can talk later."

So they stayed there sitting in silence, just thinking to themselves about all that had happened.

Harry considered what he would have to say to Ginny. So many things had changed since they had last seen each other. Now that the war was over, would she want to pick things back up where they left off? Would she be willing to have a relationship with him now? There were so many questions, but for the moment he was happy to keep them to himself and enjoy finally being with the girl he loved. He knew exactly how he felt about her and he would just have to hope she felt the same way.

There was a noise upstairs and Harry glanced up to see his best friends, Ron and Hermione start down the stairs hand in hand. They both had wide smiles plastered on their faces and Harry could see they were truly in love. Just as they made it down the stairs, Harry doubled over in pain clutching his chest.

"Harry?" Ginny said with a worried voice. "What's wrong?"

"Let me see it Harry" Hermione said as she hurried over.

She pulled his shirt up to see a burn spot in the middle of his chest. Harry screamed in pain as the cold air hit it and he immediately blacked out. When he woke up, he felt terrible. He looked around and saw that he was in a room in St. Mungo's. His throat was sore and his chest still hurt badly. He saw Ron and Ginny's dad, Mr. Weasley, rush out of the room and come back a minute later with a healer who later introduced himself as Will. He looked at Harry and said "Well Mr. Potter, it's good to see you awake. You seem to have a fairly serious injury on your chest, could you tell me what happened there?"

"I got hit in the chest by a killing curse" Harry replied carefully.

Will just shook his head knowing he shouldn't ask too many questions while Harry was still recovering. Over the next few days the healers tried a variety of different potions and spells to heal Harry. Everyone was getting discouraged with every failed attempt. Harry was quiet most of the time thinking about that last day of the war and trying to decide if he should tell them all what happened. He had decided not to even tell Ron and Hermione about what happened in the forest. Now however he was rethinking that decision. If he told them, maybe they could heal him. He was constantly having arguments with himself in his head. Will came into the room and asked to speak to Mr. and Mrs. Weasley.

"What is it Will?" Mr. Weasley asked.

"We have tried everything we can think of, but I think his injury may be permanent. The curse is contained in his body, right there in his chest. It is right next to his heart, and none of us can figure out how he survived it to begin with."

When Harry heard that, his heart sunk. He had just wanted to move on with his life, here was this one thing that he would never be able to get rid of. Hermione gave him a hug and told him everything would be alright, she and Ron would be with him every step of the way. Ginny just stood in the corner looking at him with pitying eyes. After a few more days of tests, Harry was discharged and was sent home with the Weasleys.


	2. Home is Where the Heart Breaks

Harry was given his own room at the Weasley home and that is where he spent the majority of his time over the following weeks. The Weasleys tried to talk to him, but Harry turned them away. He just wanted to think.

So much had happened in his short life, and he had never had a chance to be a normal teenager. He had been fighting the war far too long. Now that it was over, he had no idea what he would do. This had been his life, ever since his parents were taken by the violence of Voldemort. Now that his rein of terror was over, Harry now had a chance at normal life, but he couldn't shake the feeling that he had no purpose anymore.

The one person he wanted to talk to about all this however was nowhere to be found. She had not sought him out as her family had. She had not cared to talk to him about any of the things she was thinking or feeling, much less the things he was working through. Why was she ignoring him? Soon, this line of thinking had taken over. His days were no longer filled with thoughts of his violent past, or his empty future. He had become consumed with thoughts of Ginny. The only person he had ever loved and she would not even come to see him in his most difficult time.

Of course these intense thoughts had to be kept inside his head. He did not have friends with whom he could discuss these issues. Most of them had died, while the few who were left were either trying to get on with their lives elsewhere, or were related to the girl in question.

After Harry's second week with the Weasleys, he decided to ask where she was. By this point, he had realized she was no longer a resident of the Weasley house, but he had not wanted to question it for fear of drawing attention to himself.

Harry had been completely silent at most meals, Listening to conversation, but never taking part. As a result, when he cleared his throat at the table that night, all eyes flew to look at him, as if expecting a grandiose speech. If that was the expectation, they were sorely disappointed when the quiet words that came from his lips simply formed a question of where Ginny had been.

Arthur gave him a calculating look before carefully telling him that Ginny had left to help with rebuilding the Ministry. To Harry, her moving on so quickly seemed like a slap in the face to him. He needed time to adjust and to figure out what was going on with his life. He was dealing with so much, but she just moved on and found something new to do. He felt so hopeless.

After dinner, he went back to his room and laid down on the bed. Tears started to roll down his face as hopelessness set in. Harry was considering what had happened in his life. When he was young, he was made fun of and bullied at school. Then he went to Hogwarts and finally belonged. He had friends, he fell in love. But then the war took that all away.

His confusion and stress about his future had driven away the few friends he had left. Now he could be losing Ginny too. At this point, Harry had gotten himself so depressed, confused, and angry, he had to know for sure. He wrote a letter to Ginny asking her to tell him how she felt about him now.

The letter that came back a day later said that she did not know, but she did know she did not want a relationship with him. She had more important things going on in her life. She had taken the time to think and she wasn't even sure that she was willing to begin their friendship again.

Harry fell further into depression as he felt his heart break. He loved her and would do anything for her, but she had turned him down. She did not want anything to do with with him.

For the following week, Harry went to bed wondering if things would be better if he were dead. Maybe if he had died during the war, his friends and Ginny would remember him and love the memory. Or maybe if he went outside and drowned in the lake now. Would Ginny hear of his death and come back. Would she care that he was gone? Drowning wouldn't be too bad. It wouldn't be messy. Just go for a swim and drink some of the water... but that wouldn't solve anything.

This was how most of his time was spent for an entire month. He transitioned between worrying about his future and about what his role in this new world would be and thinking about how badly he had screwed up with Ginny.

That attitude had to change though.

After a month of depression, Harry was sitting in his room thinking, when he heard the door open downstairs. He heard sounds of joy, followed by shouts of outrage. As the voices got louder, Harry recognized Ginny's voice and immediately ran down the stairs to greet her. But when he got down the stairs, he saw the entire household standing there with a mixture of anger and fear spread across their faces. Ginny seemed to be finishing a story as she looked around at all of them and solemnly said, pack your bags as quickly as you can, we need to leave now.


	3. Mending on the Run

Everyone took off to their rooms, except for one. Harry just stood there staring at her. What was she doing back? Why do we have to leave? Should I say something to her?

HARRY! Go, now! She commamded angrily.

That brought him out of his thoughts and sent him back up the stairs in a daze. This was so confusing. He grabbed a bag and started throwing clothes into it. He slowly walked down the stairs to meet everyone else at the door. When they were all there, Ginny got everyone's attention and told them the plan. She had gotten a car that had been magically expanded so that they could escape without being noticed or tracked. They would go to a safe house to hide until the threat was over.

Of course, nobody had told Harry what this threat was. In fact most everyone had seemed to forget Harry was even there.

They got outside the house and piled into the car with the small bags each of them had brought. As they sped away, men in masks started to appear around the house. Harry looked back and jumped when he heard a loud crash as a plume of smoke appeared above the home they had all been in just moments earlier.

Harry turned in the seat and glanced around the car. Ginny was driving with a fierce look on her face. Mr. Weasly was comforting his wife who was in tears. Ron and Hermione were both looking stunned.

Harry's mind was racing as he tried to figure out what was going on. He had to have missed something important. When he had thought through every possibility, he finally decided to ask.

"What the hell is going on here?" Harry said to no one in particular, just hoping someone would speak up.

"Well Harry, if you had cared to pay attention to anything that was going on around you for the past few months, you would know exactly what was going on" Ginny said in an annoyed voice.

"The Ministry was being rebuilt. Some people started pushing for some of the old Order members to get involved, so that it would be built the right way. They wanted you Harry, but in your state, we didn't think it was a good idea, but I went to help in your place. I realized they were just trying to use me to get to you, so I cut all ties to you and the rest of the family. I had to know what was going on, so I had to stay. I've been a spy inside the ministry.

Harry, they're gathering a following. They know just the right things to say. They won't be taking over by force this time, they have the public support. But they need to get rid of the people who would stand against them. People like us. People who fought the Death Eaters last time."

"Those people at the house were there to exterminate you and everyone else found at the Burrow. I got there just in time though. You're lucky. Most haven't gotten out."

Harry tried to process this information, but only became angrier the more he thought about it.

"Why didn't anyone tell me about this before?" Harry asked of nobody in particular.

"We were talking about it every day Harry, but you had so much on your mind, I don't think you really heard any of it. You just stayed in your room all day and joined us for dinner in a haze. We all took part in the rebuilding efforts at the beginning, but with you recovering from that curse mark, we didn't want to involve you. When it got worse, we just didn't know how to break the news to you." Mrs. Weasley explained.

"So, what you're saying is, nothing has changed. Voldemort's followers are still after me. I can deal with that." Harry responded

Just as Harry came to this conclusion, the car came to a halt outside a run down shack on the outskirts of a forest. Everyone climbed out of the car and looked around.

"Come on people, we're on the run! Somebody help me set up some wards. Otherwise we'll just be sitting ducks!" Ginny yelled to spur them into action.

Harry pulled out his wand and started to cast the wards he had last used with Hermione and Ron on the Horcrux hunt that felt so long ago now. Before he could enact the first spell though, he felt a searing pain in his chest and fell to the ground.


End file.
